Once and Future King
by AmazingGraceless
Summary: Cedric has a secret that will change Luna's world forever, when she witnesses him pulling the Sword out of the Stone. What will happen when the two begin to fall in love?


Luna always did see things that no one else did. Maybe that's why she saw _him_ that day. She shivered at the memories of the day that would change her life forever.

* * *

It was in her third year, sometime in early November, she'd been walking. Just on a walk, in hope that maybe, just maybe, she'd see something special. She always tended to. Besides, she thought she might have visited this corridor in her sleeping hours.

The bare stones underneath her bare feet were cool to the touch, and happily smooth, allowing her to look around, unlike the Forbidden Forest, where she had to watch her steps carefully for thorns or animal droppings. She admired the arches, like something out of her book of fairytales with the illustrations and glows. In the center of the square corridor was a courtyard, with a huge hulk of stone in it, with a sword hilt sticking out of it.

Luna's silvery eyes widened. _The Sword in the Stone, like in history class,_ she thought. _What's it doing here? I've never seen it before_. She looked from behind a pillar, and saw one of the Triwizard champions over by the sword. Cedric Diggory.

 _Hmm. . . That's interesting,_ she said to herself. She watched as he looked left, then right, obviously not seeing her, the girl that disappeared despite her quirky jewelry and colorful clothing. She was quiet and at peace with life and death itself, so perhaps that was why she blended in so well, despite her iconic appearance.

Cedric then looked at the sword, smiled somewhat fondly, and placed both hands on the hilt, and pulled it out. Luna gasped, and he dropped the sword and drew his wand. Luna revealed herself instantly.

"You're King Arthur," she said in a dreamy voice.

* * *

Wart, or as he was known in this time, Cedric, was cursing in his head. _Unicorn turds! No one's supposed to see me reclaim the sword! It was supposed to be a secret, so I could use it for the dragon task! Ugh! And she figured out who I was, stupid Lovegood!_

He stopped his mental rant, and stared at her. It was that Lovegood girl, Luna, he thought it was, although he was more familiar with her schoolgirl nickname, Loony. She's not that bad, he thought, as he observed her. She had wavy curls that looked like light itself the way the sunlight hit it in the courtyard and her eyes were a beautiful silvery color, much like the Lady of the Lake's. The girl wore gay colors and bold patterns that suited her rather nicely and jewelry that looked as if it had a story behind it.

"You've come back," she said. "You've been reincarnated, and you've come back to save England once again from the darkness."

Wart smiled wryly at that. He'd hear the reincarnation theory way too many times. Little did anybody know that the boy they'd thought to be a Squib, actually had magic, and was disappearing and reappearing down the space-time continuum. Let's be honest here- although his body was seventeen, his soul was centuries old.

"Not reincarnation," he found himself explaining as he picked up his sword. He fingered the Time-Turner around his neck nervously. "More like popping in and out of existence, Luna."

"How?" There was no selfish desire in those words, from what Wart could hear, just pure curiosity as to how what she viewed as a benevolent miracle had happened. That Ravenclaw mind of hers, he thought.

"Two things, a Time-Turner and a Philosopher's Stone," Wart explained, and he padded the place in his pocket where the blood-red stone softly hit his leg whenever he walked, and tugged on the chain of his Time-Turner, hidden by the collar of his more formal "casual" clothes.

"You must have used the Elixir of Life to keep yourself young," Luna said as she stared at the sky, thinking. "Then you used the Time-Turner to keep yourself alive if you were about to die?"

"That's the gist of it," Wart confirmed.

"But I thought Arthur returning was supposed to only happen once as some special miracle," she said, looking slightly disappointed.

He chuckled. "My destiny has played out several times, Luna. Each time, though, I've been thought dead protecting Britain from some threat, and often the rest of the world."

"Sounds tiring," Luna said softly, her expression unreadable, especially her silver eyes. "Always fighting for good, never once getting to relax and just live."

"Oh, it is," he assured her. "Someone has to uphold Might for Right, though."

"It sounds lonely," she continued.

"It is," he said with a shrug. Who was he to want a different destiny? He was the only one who could hold this destiny, as much as he hated that fact.

"If you need someone to talk to," she replied hesitantly. "Come find me. You'll know where I am when it's time." With that, she flounced away, her hair a mass of light that Wart now yearned to run his fingers through.

* * *

He found himself coming to talk to her more than he'd originally thought. She was just so kind, and so wise, and just so _empathetic_. She _got_ it, more than Guinevere ever did, more than Merlin ever did. She got how lonely his life was. Of course, with Cho giving glances to stupid Harry Potter, that made it even more lonely.

"Just by Excalibur, all she talks about is Harry Potter now," he confided when they were out feeding the thestral herd. Wart had always been able to see the thestrals, ever since his first life as the King of All That Is Good and Right. He shuddered at the battle memories. Some of them were real bloodbaths, nothing to be proud of for causing.

"Do you have to live out the love triangle, too?" Luna asked.

 _Sweet Pendragon, she's observant,_ he thought as he gave a thestral a piece of meat.

"Unfortunately," Wart informed her.

"Why?" She asked. "Why do you have to live all that heartache and pain all over again? Especially since all it does is bring down Camelot."

He'd shrugged at the time, but late at night now, he thought of that question, and heard her soft, sing-song voice ask it, in his best dreams and worst nightmares. _"Why do you have to live all that heartache and pain all over again?"_

He didn't know. For the first time, Wart wondered if maybe there was a way out. A way out of the part of his story he hated the most, inevitable as it was. He had an attraction to Cho Chang, much like destiny. He knew her personality, knew it well as the centuries twisted by. She was his Jenny, after all.

He found himself, however, picturing those silvery eyes, hearing the equally as silvery voice, and was finding himself in her company more and more. Could it be that he was falling for Luna?

He groaned, sitting up in the darkness. She was several hundred years younger than him, technically. He'd seen and done so much in this seventeen-year-old body over the changing eras, that he felt much older than seventeen, which was true. His soul was much older than his body, due to the magical measures Merlin had set him up with to keep the legend going. He couldn't do that to her. Could he?

* * *

She found herself worrying for _him_ , during all of those challenges. Yes, technically all of the Triwizard Champions were at risk, and probably the most being Harry Potter, yet Wart, that was who she worried most for.

He was a living legend with skill, she knew that, in her mind. But her heart feared for him, for she'd gotten close to him in their discussions. They enjoyed meeting magical creatures together, and talking about the philosophy of Might for Right, an overall fascinating conversation.

Luna had discovered so many things about Wart, like that he'd come to love hot chocolate over the centuries, due to its initial rarity in the times when he ruled Camelot. They shared a love for pudding, as small and insignificant as it might seem. She knew that she was falling for him.

But he'd probably never love her back, she knew that. _It's probably infatuation,_ she reminded herself. After all, she was only thirteen. He was hundreds and hundreds of years old. Even if his physical body was taken into account, that was four years older than she. How could she compare to Cho Chang, who was the reincarnation of Guinevere, the Warrior Queen, the damsel of chivalry and daring?

She still fretted as he stepped out into the arena where the Swedish Snort-Snout was waiting. He'd done powerful feats of magic, Transfiguring a rock into a dog, and retrieving the egg, even when he got burned. She'd slipped away from the crowd when that had happened, and ran back to the tents, where Madam Pomfrey was smearing paste over his face.

"Are you okay?" Luna asked.

He smiled at her, with the half of his face that wasn't covered in the healing paste. "I've been in worse, Luna, you know that," he said quietly. "I'll be fine soon. It's nice that you care, though."

She shrugged at that, and took his hand, which reassured the both of them, she thought. She couldn't let her hopes rise, though. After all, he was nine-hundred years older than her, give or take a good twenty.

* * *

He faced a dilemma at the Yule Ball declaration. Cho would probably be his date, if destiny was anything to go by. There was someone else, though, that he was dying to ask: his Luna.

 _You can't take her,_ he reminded himself harshly. _She's too young for you, and not even a part of your destiny, but Jenny is. Besides, Jenny's officially your girlfriend, you shouldn't do that to her. You can't._

 _It isn't like she isn't doing that to you_ , a part of him snapped. _Talking about Harry Potter every day and night about how wonderful he is, how handsome, how talented, despite the fact that we're supposed to be soul-mates and all that. Some soul-mate_ she _is._

Wart groaned inwardly as his feet propelled him closer and closer to Cho. His Jenny was chatting with Marietta Edgecombe, when he caught her eyes.

The girl who sat all alone, the girl who even in the house of people who were supposed to be accepting of the strange, didn't fit in. He could practically see the daydreams and ideas in her eyes, always interesting and creative, always something he'd like to listen to. They were certainly more fun and meaningful than the conversation he held with Guinevere these days.

He sighed, and continued to Cho, who giggled and stood in front of Wart.

"Cho, would you go to the Yule Ball with me?" He asked. Sweet and simple. He remembered suddenly, roses, red roses, and conjured them out of his wand, a way to elevate his rather lame and simplistic proposal.

"Of course, Ced," she giggled. She took the flowers, and sat down next to Marietta again, and there was definitely some squealing. _Sweet Pendragon, why? Why him? Why did she have to dwindle the way she did over the countless centuries she'd been reincarnated?_

He caught those silvery eyes again, and guilt and longing washed over him. He would've liked to have asked Luna to the ball, but it wasn't as if she reciprocated his feelings, right?

Sometimes, Wart wondered if that was his excuse for being a gutless coward.

* * *

She was a third-year, not allowed at that ball. A small part of her had hoped that Wart would ask her, not Guinevere, but she knew that it was destiny, something he thought he couldn't mess with.

She had the perfect white robes and nice silver jewelry that she would've worn if he'd asked her. She would have looked angelic and ethereal, at least, in her mind's eye, she would've.

At midnight, when the ball ended, she'd awoken in the corridor where Wart was sitting on the steps, thinking hard from what she could see. It was interesting, when her sleep-walking did things like that; it almost made her believe in fate and destiny beyond her control. A fault in their stars, perhaps. Maybe because she wanted to blame someone for her mother's death, for the state her father was in now, for the hard life that Wart led, day in and day out.

Still, she sat down beside him, wide-awake now.

"Luna," he said in surprise. "I thought you'd be up in the Ravenclaw dorms, sleeping or something." He twirled a red rose in his hands.

"I sleep-walk," she said with a shrug. "It's always interesting, where I go when I'm asleep. Sometimes I have half-conscious memories, and that's always fun, to remember a place, but not know how I got there. In the day, I often search for those places. Sometimes I find it, sometimes I don't."

"You're a wonder, aren't you?" Wart asked, as gray eyes met gray eyes. One set was the color moonlight, the other the color of a sword about to fight a war.

"What are you doing, still here?" Luna asked after a comfortable stretch of silence where she pulled her thoughts together.

"I'm just thinking," he answered at first. "Cho broke up with me," he added after another stretch of silence.

"Why?" Luna asked, even though they both knew the answer. She just couldn't imagine someone wanting to break up with Wart, someone so sweet and chivalrous and thoughtful.

"Just how the story goes, we both know that," he replied with a rueful smile. He sighed and looked down at his feet again. "It hurts, Luna. Every single time. No matter how much I know that it's coming, it hurts just as much as it did the first time."

"I can't imagine subjecting yourself to that, time and time again," Luna said, shaking her head. "Fate is a cruel entity."

"That it is," he agreed with a small smile.

"What if you could change your destiny?" She asked slowly.

He considered the question carefully, giving her an excuse to study his features, handsome as they were.

"For the most part, I wouldn't want to change my destiny," he decided. "I'd obviously like to avoid certain parts, and I don't know, I would like to have some time to settle down before I continue to the next lifetime, just to have kids, to live some rest from glory, before I dive into it again, but I can't."

"Why can't you?" Luna argued. "Didn't Merlin once say himself, that you had to take it upon your mantel to create your destiny? Maybe you can change at least part of it." Change it to be with me, she thought selfishly.

"Oh, Luna, I'd love to," Wart said slowly, collecting his thoughts. Have her eyes always been that mysterious? Focus, Wart, focus. "Luna, I have something to tell you."

She perked her head up, listening even more closely than before.

"I really care about you," he began. How was this still hard? For Might's sake, he'd lived so many times before, made so many declarations to Guinevere about how he felt for her. This is Luna Lovegood, he reminded himself. "In fact, you could say that I've. . . Fallen in love with you." Cue the blush.

She blinked, and smiled. "I love you, too, Wart," she said in that dreamy voice.

He eyed her sadly, ignoring the caress she gave his true name. "I almost wish you didn't," he confessed sadly.

"What do you mean?" She asked, knitting those thick eyebrows.

"Think about it, for a minute, Luna," he told her. "I'm over nine-hundred years old, mentally, at least. You're only thirteen. In fact, my physical body is four years older than you! Can't you see the problems with that? I'm too old for you."

She shrugged. "I don't care about age," she said honestly. "It's just a limit society sets upon us. I can wait, if you want, until I'm seventeen, too. I don't care."

He smiled sadly. Another thing he loved about his Luna was her open mind, how she never seemed to give a damn about her reputation or what anyone else thought. Although their age was a big factor, there was another problem with their relationship.

"What about my destiny?" He asked. "What about the love triangle and all of that?"

"I don't what delusion you've been operating under, Wart, but you get to choose, ultimately," she said. "Those stars in the sky aren't the only thing controlling our fate, if we don't let them. _We_ can decide to re-write our story, especially _you_ , Wart, since you've got all eternity to re-write it to your liking!"

He considered what she said. He'd never really thought about his choice in the matter of his destiny. Yet he did remember what Merlin once said: _"I can only tell you what my powers suggest- and they point to greatness. Greatness surrounds you like a golden cloak. Your achievements could inspire humankind for centuries to come. But you alone can fulfill this destiny and then only if you wish it. You own your future. You alone."*_

Then Wart looked at Luna, the little girl beside him who he had fallen for. Maybe he could change his fate.

"We'll face it together," she promised, and they leaned in for that fairytale kiss under the mistletoe that was still hanging in the hall.

* * *

 **AN: Wordcount: 2,946 words. Prompt: Write a forbidden couple with a big age difference.**

 *** Quote comes from _The Sword in the Stone_ by Hudson Talbott.**


End file.
